Chapter 4
79 hours until the wedding
After we agree on tomorrow’s plan to catch the train to Glasgow, it’s time for a scalding, center-of-the-sun-hot shower.
I adjust the temperature until Satan himself pours out of the faucet and seductively licks my back. Perfect. I lean into the stream, relishing in what feels like the first moment of privacy all day.
As I lather shampoo into my hair, my thoughts stray to Carter.
Part of me is angry at him for not being here. For putting me in this situation. For asking for the break in the first place. But behind the anger looms a bone-crushing, ache-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach loneliness. The kind that feels like a brutal hangover that just won’t go away.
I don’t just miss him, I miss our life together.
I miss making pancakes on Saturdays and our apartment with the busted drain and the lumpy couch we’ve had since college. I miss going to parties together and having my hand held in a crowd full of people. I miss sex.
Shortly after the break started, Carter and I hooked up once. I didn’t plan for it to happen, it just did. Probably because there was a part of me that hoped he would say we should get back together—clearly we were still attracted to each other—but he didn’t. Which was somehow worse. Like being rejected all over again.
Now I don’t know what’s next. Only that I miss the familiarity of our relationship. Of knowing where my next orgasm is coming from and that his toothbrush will always be on the left side of the sink. I miss all the tiny layers of certainty insulating me from the swells and storms of life. Certainty I no longer have.
After I get out of the shower, I pull on pajama pants and a ratty old college T-shirt. Not exactly the type of outfit I’d like to be seen in—especially not by Jack—but it’s not like I’d planned on spending the night with anyone.
When I emerge from the steam-filled bathroom, Jack is sitting on the edge of the bed, still fully dressed. His eyes stay glued to his phone until I approach the bed and pull back the covers. “Let me just say, I’m feeling more and more thankful I didn’t end up with your luggage,” he says.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He gives me an impertinent look and I follow his gaze down the length of my body, landing on my pajama bottoms. Oh.
They have cartoon cats on them and are sporting several holes and definitely fall into the category of alternative birth control .
“They were a gag gift,” I say sharply. “I wasn’t intending for anyone to see them.”
“I wish I hadn’t.”
I glare at him, then lie back against the pillow and shut my eyes. Though I’m not sure how I’m gonna fall asleep.
The mattress creaks as Jack gets up and begins unbuttoning his shirt. I follow his movements like a cat following a laser pointer.
“What are you doing?”
“Changing for bed.”
“I thought we went over this. Keep. Your. Clothes. On.”
“Relax,” he says as he pulls his belt out of its loop. “I’m not getting naked or anything.”
I’m about to tell him to at least keep his shirt on when—
Holy. Cow.
Jack is jacked .
He’s not bulky exactly, but he clearly spends time at the gym—time well spent, I might add.
And to think I almost had sex with that.
Not that I would have. But still.
My eyes travel from his defined abs to his chiseled biceps, and I can’t help but wonder what would it be like to be thrown down on a bed by those . The thought sends unwanted tendrils of heat snaking through my body.
“We can still have sex,” he says, deep voice cutting through my less-than-wholesome thoughts. “If you changed your mind, that is.”
I jerk back, blood rising in my cheeks. “Excuse me?”
“Offer’s still on the table,” he says with a shrug. A shrug! Like he just asked me for my drink order, not whether I wanted to get naked with him!
“You cannot be serious,” I chide.
“Well, you were just checking me out.”
“No, I wasn’t!” I say a little too defensively. “And if you’re worried about me looking at you, maybe don’t prance around half naked!”
I wait for a bruised look, or at least a whiff of embarrassment. Instead, his smirk only deepens. “So you admit you were checking me out?”
My God. The nerve of this man. His ego must have its own zip code.
“Is this how you usually do things?” I snap.
“Do what ?”
“This!” I gesture wildly between us. “You assume I’ll want to have sex with you because you’re—” My eyes pause on his pecs and his smirk intensifies.
“Because I’m—?”
A frustrated groan rumbles in the back of my throat. “You’re not even trying to seduce me!”
“Did you want me to?” He gives me a look like he already has several strategies in mind.
Heat licks my neck, crawling straight into my cheeks. “No,” I say tightly. “My point is that women want effort, not to be told offer’s still on the table .”
“Effort,” he repeats, pretending to jot it down in an invisible notebook. “Great sex tip. Thanks.”
“Yes, effort. Maybe you can try that out next time you pick up a girl at the bar.”
“I did buy you dinner first. Does that count?”
“Trust me, if I had to do it again, I would have said no.”
“And you’d rather sleep outside tonight?”
I fold my arms over my chest. “Maybe.”
“You know you can go if you want. I’m not keeping you hostage or anything.”
I squirm and I can tell he sees my bluff.
“Well, it’s too late for that now,” I tell him. “And if you don’t mind, I’m going to sleep.” I roll over, facing away from him, and flick the light off.
The room goes dark, extinguishing Jack from view, but the sounds of him undressing fill in the gaps. His belt hits the floor with a thud. Followed by the rumpling of jeans as they slide down legs. Then the pad of bare feet across the carpet. The bathroom door opens and shuts, then the toilet flushes and the sink turns on. When he comes back, his shadowy outline hovers over the bed.
“Should I make a barrier?” he asks.
“A what ?”
“You know, stack the pillows in the middle like a barrier,” he says, motioning between us. “So we don’t have to touch.”
The thought of us touching sends a whoosh of curiosity through my stomach, swiftly followed by annoyance for not being more immune to whatever the hell kind of voodoo Jack is apparently deploying.
“No, it’s fine,” I say stiffly.
“You sure? I wouldn’t want to offend your delicate sensibilities with an accidental toe graze.”
“It’s fine,” I say again, determined not to be affected by him.
He gives me one last look before sliding under the covers beside me. “Well, we’re practically like family anyway.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Not really.”
“I mean not by blood, but I imagine we will be seeing a whole lot of each other in the future, considering your sister is marrying my best friend.”
“Doubtful.”
“We may even be spending Thanksgivings together from now on,” he goes on.
My nose crinkles with confusion. “Why on earth would we spend Thanksgiving with you?”
“Collin’s family always invites me to Thanksgiving, so I’ll probably be asking you to pass the stuffing soon enough.”
My mouth pinches. “That’s nice, but I’m sure you can find someone else to mooch off of.”
He laughs and the bed vibrates under us. “You know, you were much nicer downstairs,” he says.
“So were you.”
Jack pulls back the covers before reaching into his bag and retrieving a zebra print sleeping mask. A cackle spurts out of me.
“You’re kidding, right?”
He squints at me through the dark. “What?”
“You made fun of my pajamas, but you’re wearing a zebra sleeping mask to bed?”
“I can’t sleep without it.”
“Are you seriously telling me that if we’d, uh—” I gesture vaguely.
“Had sex?”
“—you would have whipped that thing out after?” I ask.
“I’m gonna try to ignore the part where you said whip that thing out . And no. I would have rolled over, said something macho like, Good work, kid , then fallen asleep naked,” he says. “But if I’m not getting laid, I’d rather get a good night’s rest.”
“Wow. And to think I missed out on getting called kid post-coitus. How will I live with the regret?”
Jack snorts as he pulls the mask down over his eyes.
We grow silent and the rumble of airplanes taking off overhead fills the void.
I nestle into the covers, trying to get comfortable. But I have no idea how I’m supposed to fall asleep when there’s an attractive half-naked man lying next to me. A half-naked man that I spilled my guts to because I thought I was never going to see him again.
I guess a stranger at the bar just isn’t what it used to be. From now on, I’m keeping a journal. No more telling anyone anything.
“Hey…can we forget all the stuff I said downstairs?” I ask, voice cutting through the darkness.
“You mean how you don’t think Allison and Collin will last, you dislike my best friend in the whole world, and you don’t want to go to the wedding? That stuff?”
I wince. “Yes. That stuff. I don’t want it getting back to Allison. So if you could please keep your mouth shut, that’d be great.”
“Fine. I’ll try not to mention any of that to Allison, but on one condition.”
“So you’re blackmailing me now?”
“It’s not blackmail, it’s more…” He searches for the words. “Mutually assured destruction.”
“ Mutually assured destruction ? Please tell me this is the first time you’ve said those words in bed?”
He barks out a laugh and the bed rattles. “How about I won’t tell Allison what happened—”
“You mean what didn’t happen,” I interject.
“How about I keep our little misunderstanding a secret if you don’t tell Allison that I said their marriage won’t outlast a Crock-Pot? As you so eloquently put it, Allison doesn’t exactly like me, and I’d rather not add fuel to the fire if she and Collin are actually going to do this.” He says do this like he means walking over hot coals or electrocution, not marriage.
I purse my lips, considering. As much as I’d love to use what Jack said as further proof for why this wedding is a bad idea, things with Allison and me are already strained, and I don’t want to make it worse by Jack tattling on me.
“Fine,” I say at last. “But if I find out anything that puts Allison at risk, I’ll tell her everything.”
“So I assume this is a bad time to tell you we’re going to a strip club for Collin’s stag night?”
A low groan vibrates in the back of my throat. “ A strip club? Are you trying to make it harder for me to like you?”
“It’s a classic bachelor party activity you can thank P. T. Barnum’s grandson for.”
“The circus guy?”
“The very same one.”
“You know, I don’t understand the appeal of a bunch of dudes going to a strip club together. Like why would you and all your straight bros want to get boners at the same time?”
He laughs and despite every ounce of protest in my body, the sound runs warm and liquidlike in my ears. “It’s not for me, it’s for Collin.”
“Well, it’s gross. And disrespectful to my sister.” I shift my weight, trying and failing to get comfortable. “She’s going to kill you.”
He pulls the sleeping mask off and turns to face me. “No she won’t, because she’s not going to find out.”
A sliver of light filters in past the curtains, catching an unmistakable glint in his eyes. I can tell he’s challenging me, testing our flimsy bargain to see how much weight it can bear.
But as much as I hate the idea of Collin treating his stag night like some kind of last night of freedom, it’s not worth the headache of Allison finding out about Jack and me.
I need this wedding weekend to go well, not just for her, but for me too. It’s the only shot I have at repairing our fragile relationship.
“Fine, I won’t tell her, but I won’t need to tell her. Allison will find out,” I warn.
“How?”
“Because she’s a snoop. It’s like her superpower,” I say.
Jack nods, considering this new information. “Can I confess something?” he asks.
“As long as it’s sufficiently embarrassing for you, then yes.”
“I’ve always been scared of your sister. She gets this look in her eye like she’s judging everything about you,” he says. “It’s terrifying.”
“Oh, you mean this look?” I make a face like I’m supremely disappointed in every life choice he’s ever made.
Jack laughs and it’s like the sound has its own gravity, each vibration pulling me a little closer. “Yes! That one!”
“I know that look well,” I tell him. “I’ve been seeing it since she was two.”
He props his elbow up and rests his head in the crook of his palm. “You know, I didn’t even know that Allison had a sister until Collin said something a week ago.”
“Great. So nice to hear that she speaks so highly of me.”
“Hey, at least she didn’t call you a pig.”
“True,” I tell him, though I’m not sure obscurity is much of an upgrade.
“So what else did your sister tell you about me?” he asks. “Or do I even want to know?”
I think back to when Allison first mentioned Jack, trying to reconcile the faceless groomsman I’d heard about while licking stamps for save the dates with the half-naked man now beside me in bed.
“Hmmm. Where do I start?” I put a finger to my chin. “The Slovenian Olympic figure skaters you hooked up with? Or that you allegedly had sex in a glass elevator?”
“Okay, that’s not true.”
“Which part?”
“They were Slovakian, not Slovenian.”
“Should I take that as confirmation of an exhibitionist streak?”
“You’ll have to wait and see.”
“I certainly hope not.”
Jack rolls onto his back and the mattress squeaks. I flinch as his feet graze mine. They’re cold as ice.
“Ada, can I ask you something?”
“You just did.”
“What’s the deal with the purple hair?”
“I thought you said you liked it?”
“I was trying to sleep with you.”
“So you lied to me?”
“It wasn’t a lie per se, but I couldn’t exactly say that I liked what your ass was doing in those jeans, could I?”
Unwanted heat fans across my skin. “This isn’t helping me think more highly of you, you know.”
Jack laughs and the corners of his eyes crinkle, a half-moon grin appearing through the dark. “So, why purple?” he asks. “I feel like there’s a story there.”
“When guys go through breakups do you ever just get the urge to chop off all your hair and move to South America?”
“Um, no.”
“Then you wouldn’t understand.”
“I’m sure I wouldn’t.”
He flops over and I turn onto my side, facing away from him.
“We should get some sleep,” I say, nestling into the covers. “I’m sure there will be plenty of time for you to mock my hair in the morning.”
He rolls over again, silence stretching between us for a long moment before finally he says, “Good night, Ada.”
“Good night,” I say into the black.